E-Letter to the Trinity Family -- October 30, 2020

 Greetings Trinity Family,

Happy Halloween and Reformation Day!  Martin Luther chose October 31 to pin his 95 Theses on the doors of the Wittenburg church so that everyone would see them when they came to worship on All-Saints day that year.  As you prepare for Halloween fun, please also reflect on this, the 501^st anniversary of the Protestant Tradition in Christianity!

I hope this email finds everyone doing well.   The leaves are changing and the world is awash in orange and red.  I pray you take note of the beauty of God’s creation when you look outdoors!

We will celebrate Holy Communion at both of our worship services this Sunday.  If you are worshipping at home, please have bread/crackers/tortillas and Juice/wine/water nearby so that we can all receive the elements at the same time. 

I hope you will all join us for worship this Sunday at either 10:15 am or 11 am.  This Sunday, we will join together in saying the Apostles’ Creed as our Affirmation of Faith.  If you don’t have it memorized, here are the words:

 

I believe in God, the Father almighty,
maker of heaven and earth;

And in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord;

who was conceived by the Holy Ghost,

born of the Virgin Mary,

suffered under Pontius Pilate,

was crucified, dead, and buried.

He descended into hell.

The third day he rose again from the dead.

He ascended into heaven,

and sitteth on the right hand of God the Father almighty.

From thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead.

I believe in the Holy Ghost,

the holy catholic Church*,

the communion of saints,

the forgiveness of sins,

the resurrection of the body,

and the life everlasting. Amen. 

I personally didn’t memorize the Apostle’s Creed until after I became a minister, so don’t feel bad if you don’t know it by heart.

We continue to have in-person worship services limited to 25 people.  The service will be held in our Education Building.  We will also Facebook livestream our 10:15 am service and offer a service on Zoom at 11 am. 

We are going to have our annual Turkey Dinner as a drive-through only supper.  It will be NEXT SATURDAY on November 7, 2020 with us serving from 4 to 7 pm.  In order to have the supper, we need lots of volunteers! 

·        We need as many volunteers as possible to make pepper cabbage, potato filling, set up our space, put cold items in containers, and bake pies on Friday, November 6 starting at 9 am. 

·        We need volunteers all day on Saturday, November 7. 

o   Our cooking and food preparation volunteers are invited to begin coming in at 10 am. 

o   We need servers to help take orders and deliver them to cars from 3 to 7 pm.

o   We need our clean-up crew from 6 to 9 pm.

 

Volunteers of all ages are needed the day of the dinner.  If you are a volunteer, you are welcome to eat at church during a “break.” 

If you are able to help, please let me know or call the church office: 610-584-4054.

The order form for our delicious homemade Turkey dinner is at: http://www.123formbuilder.com/form-5673318/form

Please either use the electronic order form or call the church office to place your order: 610-584-054.

We are having a special service to honor Veterans on Sunday November 8 at 2 pm in our church cemetery at the stone cross.  Everyone is invited….both veterans and people who support those who served.  We will be masked and will observe social distancing guidelines.  Please invite friends and family members to join us for this special service.

On Sunday mornings, in addition to attending worship in our Education building, you can join us on Facebook or Zoom:

Join us for our Sunday morning hymn sing at 9:45 am livestreamed from the “Ralien Luann Besch” facebook page. 

10:15 Facebook livestream Worship.  You can find us at our "Trinity Christian UCC Skippack" facebook page.

11 am ZOOM worship.  You can login at this link:

 

Amelie Sell is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.

Topic: Trinity Sunday Worship
Time: This is a recurring meeting Meet anytime

Join Zoom Meeting
https://us04web.zoom.us/j/75566827269?pwd=WEhnUm11L0RvWTM5eXJaU2tFeCtHZz09

Meeting ID: 755 6682 7269
Password: 2HcmqK

 

We also have a Sunday morning Bible Study on ZOOM at 8:45 am.  Here is the link to log in:

 

Amelie Sell is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.

Topic: Trinity's Wired Word Discussion Group
Time: This is a recurring meeting Meet anytime

Join Zoom Meeting
https://us04web.zoom.us/j/76933813590?pwd=Nzc0MkthZFBkdmVNTGYycjVtRXkwUT09

Meeting ID: 769 3381 3590
Password: 7qLSWw

Here is information about Trinity’s Music Ministry: 

Wednesday music schedule:

Adult Choir - 1st and 3rd Wednesday of each month on Zoom

Mission Music - 2nd Wednesday of each month on Zoom

Leo - 4th Wednesday of each month on Facebook

Special Surprise - when there is a 5th Wednesday of the month

 

Each of our Wednesday activities will be at 7 pm.   Here is the ZOOM link for our music ministry Wednesday evening activities:

Amelie Sell is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.

 

Topic: Trinity's Music Ministry

Time: This is a recurring meeting Meet anytime

 

Join Zoom Meeting

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/87363505182

 

Meeting ID: 873 6350 5182

One tap mobile

+13017158592,,87363505182# US (Germantown)

+13126266799,,87363505182# US (Chicago)

 

Dial by your location

        +1 301 715 8592 US (Germantown)

        +1 312 626 6799 US (Chicago)

        +1 646 876 9923 US (New York)

        +1 408 638 0968 US (San Jose)

        +1 669 900 6833 US (San Jose)

        +1 253 215 8782 US (Tacoma)

        +1 346 248 7799 US (Houston)

Meeting ID: 873 6350 5182

Find your local number: https://us02web.zoom.us/u/kbetKNjam4

If you would like to join us in-person on Sunday, November 8, please RSVP on Monday morning.  We will ask each attendee to come to church prior to 9:45 am so that we can watch Ralien and Amey’s hymn sing projected on the screen in the Education Building. 

If you would like to attend, I am keeping a list of who RSVPs until we reach 24 attendees.  You can contact me via email, at the church office (610-584-4054), or on my cell phone (314-680-0897). 

We continue to collect food and toiletry items for the Daily Bread Food Pantry.  They can be left at the doors of the church.

The Daily Bread has started their annual coat drive for kids.  They can use coats for all sizes for boys and girls.  The Daily Bread would like “brand new coats.” 

The Daily Bread's Current needs change every few weeks. This is their latest list of needs:

Personal Care: deodorant, hand soup, paper towels, napkins, laundry soap, and body wash*

Food: canned peas, creamed (cooking) soups, stuffing, pasta/potato/rice sides, juice and COOKIES please

Pet Care: Cat food and litter*

And any other items you wish to donate would greatly be appreciated!

*These items can’t be purchased with Food Stamps.

If you would like to borrow a hymnal from the church, please let me know and I will arrange for you to receive one.

Trinity now has a blog where I am posting notes to the congregation and the text of my sermons.  If you would like to read these notes and messages, you can find them at: www.trinityskippack.blogspot.com

We are collecting Shoeboxes for Operation Christmas Child.  You may pick up empty shoeboxes at the church.  Please drop off your filled shoe box by November 15.  I am attaching more information to this email about the boxes.

ON November 22, we are having a tour of “Dave’s Garages.”  This year, we are adhering to Covid-19 protocol and are able to accommodate a smaller group on our tour.  The cost is $40 a person and we will meet in the church parking lot at 1 pm to begin the tour.  IF you would like to participate, please call Gary.

I will “see” you in worship on Sunday!

Many blessings!!

Pastor Amelie

 

Learning from Barbie -- A Message for October 25, 2020

 

Scripture Reading      Matthew 22:34-46

34 Hearing that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, the Pharisees got together.

35 One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question:

36 “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”

37 Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’

38 This is the first and greatest commandment.

39 And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’

40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

41 While the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them,

42 “What do you think about the Messiah? Whose son is he?”

“The son of David,” they replied.

43 He said to them, “How is it then that David, speaking by the Spirit, calls him ‘Lord’? For he says,

44 “‘The Lord said to my Lord:
“Sit at my right hand
until I put your enemies
under your feet.”’

45 If then David calls him ‘Lord,’ how can he be his son?”

46 No one could say a word in reply, and from that day on no one dared to ask him any more questions.

Prayer for Understanding

Gracious God, through the written word, and the spoken word, may we learn about your Living Word: Jesus Christ our Savior.  Amen. 

Message   The Compassionate Life -- Learning from Barbie 

When we travelled to St. Louis this summer, we took early birthday presents for my triplet nieces.  The girls turned 5 in August and are seriously into Barbie dolls.  Their Aunt Amelie is also pretty into Barbie dolls, as is Lucia, so Lucia and I were very particular about picking out dolls for the girls.  We wanted them to be obviously different from each other and also reflect the diversity of Twenty-first century America – so one doll had Caucasian skin and long pink hair, one doll had African American skin and long black hair, and one looked kind of stereotypically Latino and had long blondish braids.  Right away, the triplets were concerned – the dolls all had long hair and therefore in their eyes looked alike – how could they tell them apart?  The girls were still going through the phase where they categorized people by hair length, not skin color – I was a tad baffled, and then said they could tell the dolls apart because one had pink hair, one had black hair, and one had blond hair.  The girls accepted this identification strategy and played away.

In our reading this morning, we return to the lengthy conversation Jesus had with Pharisees and Temple leaders who came to question him during the first Holy Week.  We have been focusing on snippets from this conversation during our worship services over the past few weeks.  This conversation probably happened on Tuesday of Holy Week --- Jesus would have drawn a lot of attention to himself by clearing the Temple of money changers and sellers of sacrificial animals on Sunday or Monday.  So a crowded gathered around Jesus and peppered him with questions.

Throughout the long conversation on that fateful Tuesday, the Pharisees and Temple authorities tried to trick Jesus into incriminating himself—they were looking for excuses to have him arrested and put into prison or put to death by the Roman officials.  The Pharisees were very legalistic in their interpretation of Jewish law.  In the questions we focus on today, they tried to entrap Jesus by asking him a question regarding the law: “What commandment is the most important commandment to follow in all the Hebrew scripture?”  I am not sure what they expected Jesus to say….but whatever it was, Jesus did not fall into their trap.

Jesus answered by quoting two scriptures.  Jesus believed the two most important scriptures in Hebrew law are:

1)     the call to prayer, or Shema, of Deuteronomy 6:5 “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.”

2) and the command from the 10 Commandments recorded in Leviticus 19:18 “… love your neighbor as yourself.”

So, the entire Bible and all of the commandments contained within it can be boiled down to Love God and Love Our Neighbors.

And, who is our neighbor? In the Gospel of Luke, Jesus tells the story of the Good Samaritan to answer this question. A pious Jewish man was beaten and left for dead on the side of a road. Many people walked by him and did not help him. The passersby included a Jewish priest and a Levite, who was a holy man. Neither stopped and helped the wounded man. Finally, a Samaritan man stopped and helped him. What was shocking about help coming from the Samaritan man was that Samaritans were the long-time enemies of the Jewish people. This is like an Eagles fan stopping to help a Cowboys fan, or an Iranian man stopping to help an American man, or a Hatfield stopping to help a McCoy. The person who proved to be a “neighbor” to the wounded man was not a member of his own religious group, was not someone who was appointed to be a spiritual leader in his community, and was not a Jewish holy man. Instead, the true neighbor who treated him with love, who treated him in the way we want to be treated, was the Samaritan, his perceived enemy.

Friends, we are in the midst of a very difficult time. We are getting attacked on all sides – Covid-19, tensions around our polarizing election, protests about racism in our country, forest fires, hurricanes, even a tsunami, virtual learning, working from home. We all feel very stressed out.

In the midst of our stress and anxiety, many of us want to retreat into ourselves. We think – I don’t want to watch the news, I don’t want to talk to anybody, I just want to hide away in my house and forget it all.

But, as Christians, Jesus taught us to engage our enemies….Jesus taught us to love each other. Sometimes, the people we are invited to love support different politicians than we do. Sometimes, the people we are invited to love vote for different political parties than we do. Sometimes, the people we are invited to love are different ethnicities than we are. Sometimes, the people we are invited to love come from different countries than we come from. Sometimes, the people we are invite to love even have different hair color than we have.

God made the people of the world to be diverse. WE speak different languages. We have different skin colors. We worship different ways. We have different hobbies and talents. We understand politics differently.

But, we grow as people when we engage others who are different than we are. And, as much as we are tempted to hide in our beds with the covers over our heads, God wants us to grow and learn from each other. God wants us to love other people and accept them as they are, not as we want them to be.

God loves the people of the world. God showers our lives with the good things we have….health, family, church community, friends, interests. God asks us to love God in return for the love God showers upon us. And, God also asks us to love each other.

I pray as we live out these next few weeks, and the political statements and mudslinging gets ugly, we will remember our job as Christians is to love each other.

May we do so. Amen.

E-Letter to the Trinity Family -- October 23, 2020

 

Greetings Trinity Family,

I hope this email finds everyone doing well.   The leaves are changing and the world is awash in orange and red.  I pray you take note of the beauty of God’s creation when you look outdoors!

I hope you will all join us for worship this Sunday at either 10:15 am or 11 am.  Attached to this email is a worship outline that our Affirmation of the week: We Believe by Michael Perry

We continue to have in-person worship services limited to 25 people.  The service will be held in our Education Building.  We will also Facebook livestream our 10:15 am service and offer a service on Zoom at 11 am. 

Thank you to all of our volunteers who came out in support of the Skippack Halloween Parade!  Together we celebrated our community’s youngest members and helped make a special Halloween for them in the midst of a strange autumn season!

We are going to have our annual Turkey Dinner as a drive-through only supper.  It will be on November 7, 2020 with us serving from 4 to 7 pm.  In order to have the supper, we need lots of volunteers! 

·        We  need three volunteers to help make mashed potatoes on November 4^th at 9 am

·        We need as many volunteers as possible to make pepper cabbage, potato filling, set up our space, put cold items in containers, and bake pies on Friday, November 6 starting at 9 am. 

·        We need volunteers all day on Saturday, November 7. 

o   Our cooking and food preparation volunteers are invited to begin coming in at 10 am. 

o   We need servers to help take orders and deliver them to cars from 3 to 7 pm.

o   We need our clean-up crew from 6 to 9 pm.

 

Volunteers of all ages are needed the day of the dinner.  If you are a volunteer, you are welcome to eat at church during a “break.” 

If you are able to help, please let me know or call the church office: 610-584-4054.

The order form for our delicious homemade Turkey dinner is at: http://www.123formbuilder.com/form-5673318/form

Please either use the electronic order form or call the church office to place your order: 610-584-054.

On Sunday mornings, in addition to attending worship in our Education building, you can join us on Facebook or Zoom:

Join us for our Sunday morning hymn sing at 9:45 am livestreamed from the “Ralien Luann Besch” facebook page. 

10:15 Facebook livestream Worship.  You can find us at our "Trinity Christian UCC Skippack" facebook page.

11 am ZOOM worship.  You can login at this link:

Amelie Sell is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.

Topic: Trinity Sunday Worship
Time: This is a recurring meeting Meet anytime

Join Zoom Meeting
https://us04web.zoom.us/j/75566827269?pwd=WEhnUm11L0RvWTM5eXJaU2tFeCtHZz09

Meeting ID: 755 6682 7269
Password: 2HcmqK

 

We also have a Sunday morning Bible Study on ZOOM at 8:45 am.  Here is the link to log in:

 

Amelie Sell is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.

Topic: Trinity's Wired Word Discussion Group
Time: This is a recurring meeting Meet anytime

Join Zoom Meeting
https://us04web.zoom.us/j/76933813590?pwd=Nzc0MkthZFBkdmVNTGYycjVtRXkwUT09

Meeting ID: 769 3381 3590
Password: 7qLSWw 

This Sunday, as part of our worship service, we will join together in a statement of faith that was crafted by Michael Perry.  If you would like to join along in saying the words at home, here they are:  

An Affirmation “We Believe” crafted by Michael Perry

All:  We believe and know

that Jesus is the Holy One of God.

 

We believe that he is the Christ,

the Son of  God,

who was to come into the world.

 

We believe that he is in the Father

and the Father is in him.

 

We believe that Jesus is the Christ,

the Son of God,

and that by believing

we have life in his name.  Amen.

Changes are afloat in Trinity’s Music Ministry. 

Here is our new Wednesday music schedule:

 

Adult Choir - 1st and 3rd Wednesday of each month on Zoom

Mission Music - 2nd Wednesday of each month on Zoom

Leo - 4th Wednesday of each month on Facebook

Special Surprise - when there is a 5th Wednesday of the month

 

Each of our Wednesday activities will be at 7 pm.   Here is the ZOOM link for our music ministry Wednesday evening activities:

 

Amelie Sell is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.

 

Topic: Trinity's Music Ministry

Time: This is a recurring meeting Meet anytime

 

Join Zoom Meeting

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/87363505182

 

Meeting ID: 873 6350 5182

One tap mobile

+13017158592,,87363505182# US (Germantown)

+13126266799,,87363505182# US (Chicago)

 

Dial by your location

        +1 301 715 8592 US (Germantown)

        +1 312 626 6799 US (Chicago)

        +1 646 876 9923 US (New York)

        +1 408 638 0968 US (San Jose)

        +1 669 900 6833 US (San Jose)

        +1 253 215 8782 US (Tacoma)

        +1 346 248 7799 US (Houston)

Meeting ID: 873 6350 5182

Find your local number: https://us02web.zoom.us/u/kbetKNjam4

If you would like to join us in-person on Sunday, November 1, please RSVP on Monday morning.  We will ask each attendee to come to church prior to 9:45 am so that we can watch Ralien and Amey’s hymn sing projected on the screen in the Education Building. 

If you would like to attend, I am keeping a list of who RSVPs until we reach 24 attendees.  You can contact me via email, at the church office (610-584-4054), or on my cell phone (314-680-0897). 

We continue to collect food and toiletry items for the Daily Bread Food Pantry.  They can be left at the doors of the church.

The Daily Bread has started their annual coat drive for kids.  They can use coats for all sizes for boys and girls.  The Daily Bread would like “brand new coats.” 

The Daily Bread's Current needs change every few weeks. This is their latest list of needs:

Personal Care: deodorant, hand soap, paper towels, napkins, laundry soap, and body wash*

Food: canned peas, creamed (cooking) soups, stuffing, pasta/potato/rice sides, juice and COOKIES please

Pet Care: Cat food and litter*

And any other items you wish to donate would greatly be appreciated!

*These items can’t be purchased with Food Stamps.

If you would like to borrow a hymnal from the church, please let me know and I will arrange for you to receive one.

We  are having a special service to honor Veterans on Sunday November 8 at 2 pm in our church cemetery at the stone cross.  Everyone is invited….both veterans and people who support those who served.  We will be masked and will observe social distancing guidelines.  Please invite friends and family members to join us for this special service.

Trinity now has a blog where I am posting notes to the congregation and the text of my sermons.  If you would like to read these notes and messages, you can find them at: www.trinityskippack.blogspot.com

Next Sunday, we will celebrate Holy Communion during our worships services.  If you are worshipping at home, please have a piece of bread or a tortilla or a cracker and juice or wine or a drink nearby so we can all celebrate communion together.

I will “see” you in worship on Sunday!

Many blessings!!

Pastor Amelie